Nucleic Acids Research, 1981, Vol. 9, No. 15 3731-3746
© 1981
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY |
Isolation and characterization of the complete chicken ß-globin gene region: frequent deletion of the adult ß-globin genes in 
Division of Biochemistry, Department of Chemistry, and the Molecular Biology Institute, University of California Los Angeles, CA 90024, USA
Received April 7, 1981.
A library of bacteriophage 
clones containing chicken chromosomal DNA was screened, using the adult ß-globin cDNA piasmid pHb 1001 as a probe. Sixteen overlapping clones were isolated containing 35 kilobase pairs (kbp) of chicken DNA. Characterization of these clones revealed four ß-like globin genes, some genomically repeated sequences, but no pseudo-genes. The four ß-like genes have an average intergenic distance of less than 3 kbp, which is less than half of that found for the mammalian ß-like globin gene clusters so far characterized. The overall features of the map were confirmed by genomic Southern analysis. Frequent deletions were shown to occur between the various ß-like globin genes during phage propagation. The presumptive hatching gene in particular was always associated with abnormal clones although we were able to find one such clone that did contain a normal copy of the hatching gene itself. Probably such deletions explain the failure to recover this gene in previous attempts.